Interview Week: The Writing Craft with Alan Dean Foster

We've done many interviews prior to this,  (all of which were very generous of you to do), I am going to focus here upon what experiences create a writer, what interests you, and how you create.

What is your first memory as student of writing when you knew what you wanted to do? What about becoming writer would you say is a universal formative moment or event for all future writers?

I was a graduate student in film writing at UCLA.  While other students were struggling to complete their assignments, I was usually done in a few weeks.  Just for fun, I thought I would try my hand at some short stories.  The twelfth attempt sold, and to an editor/ writer I admired: August Dereleth.  The next one sold to John W. Campbell.  It was at that point that the light went on and I thought I might have found something I was pretty good at. 

First sale is often a formative moment for all writers, no matter the genre.

Obviously any creative artist is influenced by the world in which they exist, but, you write science fiction primarily, how does a sci-fi writer know what can only be speculated upon, and in a consistent way?

I’ve found that those who write SF are frequently inspired by reading it.  Having experienced the imaginary worlds of others, they begin speculating on their own.  As to consistency, that’s something that is all too often lacking in much SF.  Just because a world is invented does not mean it exists without rules of its own.

A number of my own works have been inspired by my travels other countries and experiencing other environments, other cultures.

When you write dialogue, do you hear the character voices speaking in the sound of their voice, and if not, do you have a way to write dialogue so it becomes more, for want of a better term, ethnic?  Or a product from their universe?

I always hear characters speaking in their own voice…including the aliens.  As for writing ethnicized dialogue, sometimes I’ll make a deliberate effort to utilize invented, non-human speech patterns.  It’s a balancing act between making a character “sound” alien, and having them remain comprehensible.  The most extreme example in my own work is in the recent novel STRANGE MUSIC, where I’ve tried to render alien speech that is always sung into comprehensible English patterns.  I did it by adapting the rhyme-scheme Longfellow used in his Song of Hiawatha.

Did you desire to world travel before deciding upon becoming a writer, or, did creating worlds and peoples inspire you with a desire to world travel?  How hard is it for a writer to create a culture, a people different from any earth culture?  Is that the key to great sci-fi, language and culture?

If I could’ve found someone to pay me for traveling I might never have become a writer.  I blame it all on Scrooge McDuck (or rather his creator, Carl Barks).  Scrooge traveled all over the world having marvelous adventures, and I wanted to go with him (but not if I had to pay my own way).  Later on I discovered a book of Richard Halliburton’s travel writings.  Halliburton is largely forgotten today, but he was big stuff in the early 20^th century.  I still remember a b&w photo of him standing in front of the Taj Mahal.  Then there were the books of Frank “Bring ‘em back alive” Buck, a guy who used to collect for zoos and circuses.  Travelers and adventurers all, and I wanted to be one of them.

Wrong century for that sort of thing, but I’ve done the best I can.  Experiencing other cultures certainly helps in creating new ones.  The culture of the world in DROWNING WORLD is a directly based on that of Fiji.

Do you write something creative daily?  What kind of routine do you get into, or, do try to not have a routine, and work out of pure fire, not labor?

When I’m working on a project I force myself to write something every day.  Might be just a paragraph.  Might be crap.  But I find that once the words start appearing, it’s like turning on a tap.  It’s the getting started that’s the hardest part.  Like getting a reluctant car engine to turn over.  Once it’s running, you’re usually good until you deliberately turn it off. 

Pure fire, or inspiration, is fine for dilettantes.  Working writers have no time to wait around for either one.

I am not herein asking for you to choose a favorite writer, but, as a writer what creative talent inspires you as a role model more than any other?  What is it about that choice that causes that response in you?

Robert Sheckley, master of the SF short story.  Dozens of brilliant ideas thrown out like fireworks.  Most writers would settle down and get an entire novel out of one of his ideas.  Bob just tossed ‘em off and hurried on to the next one.  Also Balzac.  If he could write dozens of novels with a quill pen, no contemporary writer has the right to claim they can’t “get through it”.

What factors are necessary for a writer to become a professional and published creative talent?  Are the basic talents transferable, that is, can a writer, with time become a good artist? Can a painter decide to write, and after time because of the nature of creative talents, become a good writer?

There are creative polymaths who have done both, but I don’t think you can train yourself to do it.  The talent has to be in you.  Barks is a good example.  A fine artist and, I think, and even better writer.  Not very many composers also wrote their own librettos, and vice versa.  In film, we have Preston Sturges, who not only directed but wrote some of the funniest and most pointed comedies of all time.  It’s a rare gift.

I’d love to write classical music.  I hear it in my head all the time, but since I have no music training and can’t play an instrument, I have no way to get it out.  Need direct mind to music paper transfer (there’s an old Astounding magazine story about that, by Katherine MacClean, I think. Late ‘40’s or early ‘50’s). 

Do you believe humans will find a way to travel in space that is good enough to escape the world crisis of over population, climate change, war, pandemics?

Well, Arthur Clarke said that if experts declare that a thing is impossible, it almost certainly is possible.  I think we’ll get off the planet, but I’m not sure it will be in time to escape our own follies or in sufficient numbers to ensure the continuation of the species.  Maybe some other species will come rescue us.  If they do, it will not because we deserve it, but because they’re either curious, bored, or both.

If humans could escape earth, and find a planet empty of human like analogues, could they create a better society, knowing what we did to our first planet?

“Could” being different from “would”. I’m afraid we haven’t matured very much as a species. What might give us a chance to create a better society elsewhere would be the advent of truly intelligent machines. These would free us from drudgery (who’s going to clean the toilets in that better society?) while perhaps also preventing us from indulging our baser instincts.

In 50 years what will things may happen daily or simply regularly and become mundane, that we cannot now perceive in the way and size of it?  How can a writer imagine the future, without having a gift of prophecy?

You try to extrapolate as best you can from current trends in society and technology.  It’s much easier to write about a future a thousand years from now than it is from fifty, because the latter is so much more closely tied to a known present.  It depends how realistic you want your future society to be.

For example, how would society adapt if someone invented an infalliable lie detector?  If you refused to use it, everyone would assume you had something to hide.  Politicians, educators, CEO’s…not to mention married couples.  Such an invention would change society in ways we can scarcely envision.  For the better?  That’s another question.

And that’s what SF is all about: asking questions.